
Telecommunication in Canada
The development of telecommunications in Canada is roughly equivalent to the United States. Under the country code +1, there were a total of 45.65 million connections in 2021. Among them were 32.72 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.86 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 8.74 million webhosts, Canada is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 1.52 million of these, or about 17 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Canada
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 144.50 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Canada ranks 15th in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 34.33 Mbit/second was significantly lower (53rd place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, Canada comes 14th with a download speed of 87.48 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 12 Mbit was only enough for 55th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in December 2022 from 178 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in Canada from 1990 - 2020
Broadband internet in Canada 1998 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
Distribution in 2021 | Canada Total | Canada percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 16.45 m | 43.02 % | 127.03 m | 38.27 % |
Landlines | 12.93 m | 33.80 % | 97.11 m | 29.26 % |
Mobile cellulars | 32.72 m | 85.56 % | 361.62 m | 108.96 % |